


Gathering Praise

by completelyhopeless



Series: Persuaded Universe [6]
Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:03:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3600747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard struggles with his unwanted popularity and Barbara with her guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gathering Praise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/gifts).



> For the prompt: _[any. any. undeserved praise.](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/600047.html?thread=83640303#t83640303)_
> 
> I have been having a hard time getting even short pieces done of late thanks to job chaos, but I finally managed to put together something for this universe after looking at prompts again.

* * *

Richard did not deserve praise, and he knew it. 

He had found that this world did not allow for it, this place outside the circus where people obeyed rules that he could not understand and didn't see any value in, this place where titles supposedly made someone better than someone else, where money made people important when they weren't.

He had money now, and that had changed everyone's opinion of him, turning him from someone few acknowledged to the guest of honor at every meal. He found his company was always sought out, and he did not know that he felt that anyone doing so actually _liked_ him, more that they wanted their daughter or sister to marry someone with money.

If Bruce had not married Selena long ago, they would have pursued him just as much—no, more—but he was safe from it. He was settled and married and could be sure that if these people wanted his company it was because of his own merit. He had earned it through the navy or because Selena was endlessly charming.

Richard did not feel that charming. He had the girls hanging on every story he would tell about the navy, following him when he went with the others to hunt, and even there he was not free from insincerity. Harvey would compliment him on his shots, most of which were poor at best. Richard knew how to shoot, had known before he went into the navy, but having shed blood in war, he had no desire to do it in peace. He let the animals go, unwilling to kill anything else.

He supposed that was another reason he disliked his own stories about the navy. The ones about his friends, the men he'd served with and owed his life and fortune to, they were not as hard to tell or to hear, but the ones with battles and sinking other ships, the kinds that supposedly made him a hero, those he hated to repeat.

He did not feel like a hero. The sea had been freedom for him, and he longed for it, but it did have a price as well. He liked to forget that, to remember only the times when he was able to swing from the masts and feel like he was flying, to breathe in the air that was cool and fresh with a slight bite to it, but it was not all freedom and flight. Sometimes it was blood and death.

He was not a hero.

He hated when others called him that, giving him praise he had not earned.

Worse, he felt _her_ eyes on him every time he received it. Barbara's. She knew him better than the others, knew he did not deserve it, and when she would hastily look away from him, he knew she was aware of it, of how little he deserved any kind of praise.

It hurt almost as much as it had years ago, back before the war, back when she had broken his heart.

* * *

Barbara knew she should be relieved to have everyone's subject of conversation change from their daily complaints—from Pamela and her imagined illnesses and her children and her conflicts with her mother-in-law and husband—she was not, not when the new subject that everyone seemed so enamored of was Richard. Even Admiral Wayne had not attracted as much notice when he and Selena came, though Barbara supposed it was because he was already married.

Her stomach twisted with disgust, remembering the way that Darcy and Stephanie fawned over him, both of them doing nothing but _Captain Grayson_ this and _Captain Grayson_ that. She didn't understand it because she was sure that Stephanie was interested in Harvey's cousin Timothy, but apparently that had been shaken by the idea of some dashing sea captain.

Barbara had known him when he wasn't a captain, when he wasn't considered a hero, and she thought she'd liked him better then. Maybe it was because she didn't feel ashamed if he looked in her direction then, that when he'd looked at her before it was with fondness of friendship if not love, instead of the indifference he showed her now. Before it was easy to be in his company, and she'd thrilled to hear his name.

Now she knew only pain at the sound of his name or the touch of his gaze. She'd failed him she'd lost that affection and love, and she deserved to feel it.

She had never known him to want this flattery, the mindless adoration, and she'd liked that about him, how he was humble even though he was talented, but if he wanted it now, if he had changed so much, then he deserved to have it.

She would simply endure the pain of hearing it. That was her own burden and the price of her past foolishness.


End file.
